In general, the art of the invention is employee time clocks for construction sites. It is known in the art to have an employee punch a time card upon arriving and when leaving a site. However, punching a time card requires that a physical card be handled by several people without being lost. Furthermore, a time card based system does not allow for remote supervision and management of a job site as can often be the case when supervising multiple construction sites.
In the construction industry, overtime can change depending on job site location, time of the year, time of day, weather and job parameters. Currently, time clocks of the prior art do not account for each of these changes in calculating overtime. Furthermore, overtime is not sufficiently monitored and managed in many organizations leading to lower productivity and higher costs.
Also, in the construction industry, many worksites are remote from computer networks, so simply automating a time punch system at the site is got often feasible. This is especially true in the early stages of construction projects where electricity is not even available except through generators.
The prior art is lacking an ability to account for an employee reporting to multiple job sites under multiple job numbers, job phases and cost codes. In the construction industry, such multiple reporting can happen in a single day. For example it may be possible to have an employee clock in at two job sites, but only work at one job site for the day, while getting credit for work hours from both job sites.
In the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,359 to Bennett discloses a system and method for recording employee time and attendance information. A user identification document contains identification information in the form of a bar code. The user places the document in a region of a reader which scans and stores the identification information. A host computer is connected to the reader and periodically polls the reader to obtain the identification information. The system records a video image of the user as the bar code is scanned.
A timesheet reporting and extraction system is disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0019542 to Fuchs et al. The timesheet reporting and extraction system accepts time entry data from a first user using a first computing device. The time entry data is compared to a pre-defined work schedule and discrepancies are noted for overtime and other adjustments. Timesheet information is uploaded to web server for database storage. A second user approves timesheet entries using a second computing device. The first and second computing devices can be collocated with the web server or remote from the web server.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,367,491 to Cheng et al. discloses a system for dynamically controlling attendance of a group of employees of an organization. The system comprises a plurality of client computers, a corporation website, application server and a database. Each client computer provides an interactive user interface for any of the employees to log on to the corporation website in order to process attendance operations, including recording an arrival time and a departure time for each employee. A qualified supervisor is enabled to obtain information relating to the employees.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2011/0082777 to Chess discloses a time keeping computer system comprising a time keeper photo data base, time clock photo program, camera image device, payroll program, computer, camera, clock in time, and clock out time. The camera captures an image of an employee upon clock-in and clock-out by the employee. The computer maintains an earlier image of the employee.